The Rise of Pyra - A story about the past 6 months


Askarus

Forum Addict!
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
5,001
Location
Germany
A new hope

OnDesk.jpg


Our story starts in February

Back in February I quit my job as a programmer. Since I had nothing better to do and because I had some random spark of enthusiasm, I decided to go back to the roots. Some might say I am a person who must obviously hate himself a lot, judging how I voluntarily chose to torture myself by taking on the Pyra mess production.

For the first two months, I traveled to Ingolstadt once every week and stayed one night at ED's house, since I do not live near Ingolstadt any longer. During that time we did the first batch of new orders and progressed the preorders by about 100. That does not mean that we shipped 100 Pyras because not everyone on the list actually responds to the new E-Mail anymore.
We could slowly but continuously start shipping Pyras. It was not much because I still had to get into it once again and unfortunately the housing requires quite a lot of reworking.
Nevertheless, we continued that way until we ran out of black cases. That was in April.


The purification

photo_2024-08-05_16-49-37.jpg

Get baptized so that your sins will be washed away. That's right, as a Christian I did not allow any further Pyras to be delivered, if not each part of the case was baptized by my own hands.

Actually, this was some big mess. The new unpainted housings we got were not cleaned properly by the manufacturer. On the housings, there was some oil or whatever film applied, so that the housings will eject more easily from the mold. However that makes the paint not stick properly on some areas, which will lead to some ugly results.

This is the point now where we shifted the production to mostly my house. I took all the housings with me and started the big cleaning. Every piece of housing was put into a pool of soap water for about 2 hours. When taking it out, I quickly brushed each one, just to make sure it was properly cleaned. Luckily it turned out that soap water was enough, and we did not have to clean them with Isopropanol, which would have taken forever.

It might not seem obvious but drying the whole pile of casings efficiently was also a bit of a challenge. I went quite creative at first
photo_2024-08-05_16-49-12.jpg

This was not super efficient and I was afraid that the housings might scratch. I ended up with the following: First I put the wet housings onto some grid, so that the water could drop off. I helped a little with a battery powered leaf blower.
Before the next batch of housings was ready to be taken out of the water, the ones on the grid were put on a rope and put on the ground in a certain angle, so that the remaining water could flow off and not leave some traces;
photo_2024-08-05_16-49-31.jpg

This procedure took several weeks. I could only do 3 boxes of housings per day because this was quite taxing on my back (doing this all on the ground is not an ergonomic workflow) and very time consuming. Further, my official contract is only for about one and a half days per week and at that time I was not motivated to do more than that. Not the least because I needed to rest my back after 2 days of cleaning.
Don't worry, my back is healthy and I recover from such work loads quickly. It's not like I do this all the time :)

Check out the huge chunk of boxed I had in front of me.
photo_2024-08-05_16-49-24.jpg


Heavy metal, baby

It's copper time.

Cleaning the housings finished in May. It made no sense to send out new E-Mails because the majority of people ordered black housings. So we decided to wait until we got the painted ones. It turned out that this until the mid of July.

This however did not mean that we were on idle. We still needed to take care of all the Vodka we had stocked up for exactly such times, and since Germany now allows Marijuana, the waiting time could be used to progress into other directions.
I made the decision that going on like we did in February and March is way to inefficient and that we should transition to mass/batch production. It's up to you to decide if this was the result of rational thinking or by the scenario described above.

So I took all the copper housings and other parts with me and started to experiment on how to increase efficiency.

Most steps were straight forward. Two however where a huge pain.
  1. Paint
  2. Nubs
Paint
Believe it or not, but the copper paint broke the battery lid. The new housings have a re-designed battery lid. It's now a sliding mechanism, which works much better than the old one. However adding the copper paint to it added 0.X millimeters of thickness to both the battery lid and the housing. Further it turned out that the copper paint had much higher friction than the unpainted plastics. This combined resulted in a battery lid that was pretty much impossible to open once it was closed. Not good. In April we already figured out how to make them function in an acceptable way. Luckily I had a drill head that could widen the gaps in a semi-efficient and not too ugly way. This widens the gaps where the notches of the battery lid slide in and thus reduce friction.
Here is how it looks now:
photo_2024-08-05_16-49-47.jpg

Spoiler alert: It turned out that the new black coating has a totally different feel than the copper one. It has way less friction and I did not have to do that ugly modification on the black cases :)

Nubs
It's not the nubs themself that are problematic. Somehow more often than not there is not enough room inside the housing for the plastic head to move 100% freely. This results in some friction and causes some nubs not to return to center position properly once they are released.
The solution to this is to remove like 0.1mm of materil from the housing in the area where the nubs are located. What might sound easy is like the biggest and most time consuming step in the whole process. Those housings are quite sturdy and there is not efficient way to remove that plastic in a wide are simultaneously. At first I tried a forstner drill, however even a new and sharp drill head could did not work. The housing was not only hard but also very sleek.
In the end my father suggested to cut a piece of sand paper at the desired size and tape it onto a washer of the desired size. That way we made our own drill which turned out to be quite a functional solution.

photo_2024-08-05_19-05-47.jpg

Even though we have a drill stand that allows to move the drill head down, I still could not go that route and needed to manually press each piece against the self made drill head. That is because of heat. Even with a slowly rotating head, the housing starts to become warm quite fast and if too much pressure was applied or the procedure went on for too long, the housing melted. So I needed to manually tilt the housing below the rotating drill head and keep my fingers on the other side to apply counter pressure and to be able to react immediately, once the heat emerges.
Further I did two runs for each housing, at first with a rough sand paper (right one) to remove the material and make the surface rough. After that I used a fine one (left one) to polish the surface and make sure that the nubs will have nice conditions for free flow movement.

Here is the result
photo_2024-08-05_16-49-52.jpg

The rest of the copper production went quite smooth. There are quite a few (extra) steps involved while preparing the housings. However those are just small cuts or other quick actions that do not take too much time if it's all done in a batch production.
I have a really big desk here for work and once I clean it all up, I can fit a bit over 50 housings on it at the same time. This is a nice batch size to work with.

Here I'm having some fun with key mats for example
photo_2024-08-05_16-49-42.jpg


Some true slacking off

The copper cases were prepared by the end of June. During the first weekend of June we visited the Level Up in Salzburg, Austria. It is a gaming event with not only video games but also a huge table top area, sword fighting and board games. We spent one week to prepare the event and also to keep things ready for the Gamescom in August.

During the first three weeks of July we had to wait for the cases and I visited the shop the help cleaning up a bit and to dig through ancient GPD devices. I even got some (semi) broken souvenirs including an old GPD XD, which visited quite a few Gamescom events with us.
After that I had the honor to build a couple of Retrodes.


Ambition in black

Two weeks ago, the black housings finally arrived. I was still pissed that EvilDragon decided to paint the bottom part at all because it was the copper paint that made the battery lid quite impossible to open.
However there was a huge surprise inside those boxes: The paint was different. It's not just that the black paint was way easier on the battery lid mechanism.
It was also different than the old black paint.

Oh my god this thing looks and feels so premium. It's a bit rough and matte. The old black is a bit glossy and sleek. The new one is not reflective at all and has a nice rough texture.
Here are some pictures. The right one is the new one.
photo_2024-08-05_16-22-41.jpg
photo_2024-08-05_16-22-56.jpg

So in the end, painting the whole case was the right thing to do. This is a pleasant surprise.
However there is one downside. It seems like the new paint is way more vulnerable to scratches. Once or twice I slipped off during production and my finger nail left some trace. The old one was quite more sturdy.
I snatched off a housing for myself but still did not apply it to my Pyra. I have no idea how the new paint behaves in the long term and if it will degrade over time.
At the current moment however, it looks great.

Anyways, back to production.

Since I will not be available indefinitely and I had an other spark of enthusiasm, I went all in and spent 1 1/2 weeks doing non-stop Pyra work. (To put things in perspective, just doing the nub rework took a whole day. It's crazy how much time this takes).
Here is the result: 137 black shells, awaiting their PCB
Black140.jpg


The next 2 month

I will visit EvilDragon later this week. We need to do an inspection on how many of each PCBs we still have in stock. Also EvilDragon did not see the new paint yet. Both of us did not expect such a nice upgrade, so he just handed over the boxes to me and I took them with me.

At the 19th we prepare and take off for the Gamescom and we will probably take this week and/or next week to prepare for the exhibition. So the chances that Pyras will be shipped during August are quite low.
Maybe we'll send out some more E-mails to notify remaining customers.

In sum, we have about 190 housings prepared. 137 of those are black ones. I am not sure about the count of the copper ones. There should be a bit over 50 of those.

More pain
Just don't you think all we need to do is to put in the PCB and close the housings now. The shoulder buttons are a MAJOR pain to tweak. Much more annoying to me than the Pandora shoulder buttons were.

Further, we have a pile of CPU-PCBs that are not working because of RAM timing issues. The most annoying ones are those that aork at first but fail during flashing. Luckily we notice those and from the ones I build all Pyras that were sent out were stable.
Doing that last step, tweaking the shoulder buttons and dealing with failing Pyras is the most frustrating and demotivating part of all.


Remaining issues, here you can help us

What we need the most is some help to fix the boot issues. What we need is a way so that EvilDragon or I (= the noobs) can easily experiment with RAM timings. We have high hopes that many of the dead PCBs can be revived if we experiment with the timings and tweak them to make them work with more CPU-boards.
The issue is, that EvilDragon lacks the time to get into it, so he would need someone to provide an easy solution that allows him to tweak the parameters and test them.
I myself have some moments of ambition to get into the whole OS stuff, however there is a reason why I quit as a programmer. If someone would be willing to contact me, I'd gladly help or collaborate. However the both of us need someone to take us by the hand a bit.

There is a lot more work that needs to be done. This post however shall be about the good news and is already long enough.
Maybe some day I will be stupid enough to publicly promise and other news post regarding open issues and I must commit to it (like I did with this one here).


Final surprise

(No, not painted baguettes for everyone)
If you have made it this far, congratulations, you have no life, just like me.
I decided to record the mass production of the black housings.
If I can push myself enough, I'll make a video with explanations for you :)
In that video you will see what a brilliant worker I am and why the Pyra production requires to make a knife out of an old credit card.

photo_2024-08-05_19-05-52.jpg


Something that surprised me

It surprised me how one man can make such a difference. To me it seems like this all is not some kind of wizardry. Apparently it is. If it is not, shut up and let me believe that I am a wizard :p
I always thought that if I leave, just someone else picks it up and that's it. I never expected that it makes such a huge difference if I come back and support the project for a few hours a week. It almost makes me feel bad for leaving. At least it makes it hard for me to ever quit fully before not all orders are completed.
It's not like I gain anything except for some very temporary recognition by some random people on the Internet. At least they are real people and not bots, that's more than you can ask for today :p
My only wish is that the project will not die completely and that we maybe some day will get a SoC and case refresh and that at least part of the community and enthusiasm that once brought the Pandora to life might come back :)
 
Last edited:
Well done, mate. What a story of devotion and dedication. Bravo!
 
Awesome work, and an update that was actually worth the (rather too long) wait, thanks!

One thing I'm wondering - I've seen it mentioned before, and also here that all the copper cases have been sent - assuming that there are still a lot of (pre-)preorders to be made/sent..? By the looks of it, it seems like the best / sensible option would be to go for black anyway, although I really liked the look of the copper ones from what I've seen (and I've not received an email yet - sure I'm still a long way down the list yet.
 
A new hope
Thank you. I wasn't expecting so detailed news.Much the better.


Back in February I quit my job as a programmer.
Well done, maybe.

Some might say I am a person who must obviously hate himself a lot, judging how I voluntarily chose to torture myself by taking on the Pyra mess production.
We're not that judgemental here. We try to accept everyone as is.
And we have this unwritten rule of not leaning to critize people who are working for our pyras.
On top of all that, you know yourself better than I do, so you may have your reasons to hate or torture yourself.
You don't have to do it, but then, in order to avoid it, you might need to lower your expectations about yourself or the world, which might or might not be more painful.
In summary: hate or torture yourself as much or as little as you please, but keep building Pyras, please. Thank you.

For the first two months, I traveled to Ingolstadt once every week and stayed one night at ED's house, since I do not live near Ingolstadt any longer. During that time we did the first batch of new orders and progressed the preorders by about 100. That does not mean that we shipped 100 Pyras because not everyone on the list actually responds to the new E-Mail anymore.
So if they don't respond you save their pyra for a while waiting to some response or retry or something ?

The purification


Get baptized so that your sins will be washed away. That's right, as a Christian I did not allow any further Pyras to be delivered, if not each part of the case was baptized by my own hands.
So, with baptism of the PCBs all blobs would be washed away ?
Not all baptisms clean the body. Some in some rivers are more like the Paris Olympics, I believe... Not sure if that includes christian baptism though...

Before the next batch of housings was ready to be taken out of the water, the ones on the grid were put on a rope and put on the ground in a certain angle, so that the remaining water could flow off and not leave some traces;
View attachment 39314

This procedure took several weeks. I could only do 3 boxes of housings per day because this was quite taxing on my back (doing this all on the ground is not an ergonomic workflow) and very time consuming.
I wonder if you could set up some cheap table with some plastic sheet on top to protect it and leave the case on the plastic so that they don't dance to the wind and scratch, but you don't have to do it all on the floor ?
Maybe not even a table. Even some cardboard boxes with a bit plastic sheet on top ?


Further, my official contract is only for about one and a half days per week and at that time
I was not motivated to do more than that. Not the least because I needed to rest my back after 2 days of cleaning.
It might not even be legal to work more than what the contract says...

Don't worry, my back is healthy and I recover from such work loads quickly. It's not like I do this all the time :)
Still, take care of work related health hazards...

This however did not mean that we were on idle. We still needed to take care of all the Vodka we had stocked up for exactly such times, and since Germany now allows Marijuana, the waiting time could be used to progress into other directions.
Sound like more of a work hazard than your back...
So I needed to manually tilt the housing below the rotating drill head and keep my fingers on the other side to apply counter pressure and to be able to react immediately, once the heat emerges.
Not sure I understand but it sounds dangerous. Take care.
Further I did two runs for each housing, at first with a rough sand paper (right one) to remove the material and make the surface rough. After that I used a fine one (left one) to polish the surface and make sure that the nubs will have nice conditions for free flow movement.


However there is one downside. It seems like the new paint is way more vulnerable to scratches. Once or twice I slipped off during production and my finger nail left some trace. The old one was quite more sturdy.
Well, the new black looks great. I don't mind scratches, I think. The older my Pyra looks the less attractive to thieves.

I snatched off a housing for myself but still did not apply it to my Pyra. I have no idea how the new paint behaves in the long term and if it will degrade over time.
It's a surprise, will one get a new or old painted Pyra? how will the paint survive ?
We have a new feature: lottery.

At the 19th we prepare and take off for the Gamescom and we will probably take this week and/or next week to prepare for the exhibition. So the chances that Pyras will be shipped during August are quite low.
No way, man. It's two months ! How can you even think of sending pyras the same month you announce it ?
That dirty mind of you!
More pain
Just don't you think all we need to do is to put in the PCB and close the housings now. The shoulder buttons are a MAJOR pain to tweak. Much more annoying to me than the Pandora shoulder buttons were.
Looks like you'll find a way to batch fix them somehow...

Further, we have a pile of CPU-PCBs that are not working because of RAM timing issues. The most annoying ones are those that aork at first but fail during flashing. Luckily we notice those and from the ones I build all Pyras that were sent out were stable.
Doing that last step, tweaking the shoulder buttons and dealing with failing Pyras is the most frustrating and demotivating part of all.
I hope the yeld is not too bad... :(
Remaining issues, here you can help us

What we need the most is some help to fix the boot issues. What we need is a way so that EvilDragon or I (= the noobs) can easily experiment with RAM timings. We have high hopes that many of the dead PCBs can be revived if we experiment with the timings and tweak them to make them work with more CPU-boards.
The issue is, that EvilDragon lacks the time to get into it, so he would need someone to provide an easy solution that allows him to tweak the parameters and test them.
I myself have some moments of ambition to get into the whole OS stuff, however there is a reason why I quit as a programmer. If someone would be willing to contact me, I'd gladly help or collaborate. However the both of us need someone to take us by the hand a bit.
Ok, I have no idea what I'm saying, but for some generations of DDR RAM, there are algorithms run at boot init (by Uboot TPL, SPL or some previous stage) to calibrate RAM timings at boot (and voltages, even, I think).
I mean do the timings have to be hardcoded? Could we borrow some dram init code from some similar board ? I seem to remember than older RAM used fixed timings, but does it have to be so ?
Is that recommended by the manufacturer ? The dram init is reputed as a very difficult piece of code, but who knows, tweaking timings manually does not seem easy either, with any interface.
Is the OMAP documentation public or does it need NDA?
There is a lot more work that needs to be done. This post however shall be about the good news and is already long enough.
Thank you again.
Maybe some day I will be stupid enough to publicly promise and other news post regarding open issues and I must commit to it (like I did with this one here).
Hopefully. You understand than when you get news late the markets get nervous. Asia stock exchange fell today waiting for Pyra news... (stock analyst know nothing)

If you have made it this far, congratulations, you have no life, just like me.
Who needs a life ?

I decided to record the mass production of the black housings.
For a remake of "Modern Times" by Charles Chaplin?
If I can push myself enough, I'll make a video with explanations for you :)
In that video you will see what a brilliant worker I am and why the Pyra production requires to make a knife out of an old credit card.
If you feel like it, go ahead, but news updates just like this one you made are perfect for me, I don't need you to make a video if that takes more of your time.
 
Awesome work, and an update that was actually worth the (rather too long) wait, thanks!

One thing I'm wondering - I've seen it mentioned before, and also here that all the copper cases have been sent - assuming that there are still a lot of (pre-)preorders to be made/sent..? By the looks of it, it seems like the best / sensible option would be to go for black anyway, although I really liked the look of the copper ones from what I've seen (and I've not received an email yet - sure I'm still a long way down the list yet.
No. We have about 50 copper cases prepared still.
There should be 50 more which are not prepared. We are missing the bottom cases of those. They are probably hidden somewhere.
However most people order the black ones, so if you want a copper one, chances are high that you'll get one.
 
Well done, maybe
Yeah, just a few months in the industry cured me from programming once and for all.
I am a Psychologist by profession and in November I will start my training as Psychotherapist.
It will be an other 2 years of hard work and learning but after that I will never be forced to work with technology I am not interested in or have to deal with tickets and pointless meetinge.
If I think about it, only a therapist has even ore meetings than a computer scientist


So if they don't respond you save their pyra for a while waiting to some response or retry or something ?
No, no holding back. It does not make sense. We produce Pyras as orders come in. There are EU, US and no LTE. Double those for black and copper. We count the orders and make Pyras accordingly.

I myself think that his order number thing is stupid anyways. Just batch produce them and send them out.
(I personally thing that offering 2 colors in our current situation is stupid anyways)

I wonder if you could set up some cheap table with some plastic sheet on top to protect it and leave the case on the plastic so that they don't dance to the wind and scratch, but you don't have to do it all on the floor ?
Maybe not even a table. Even some cardboard boxes with a bit plastic sheet on top ?
It's fine.

It might not even be legal to work more than what the contract says...
It is not. However in March and February I did not even have a contract. Back in the Pandora days I worked countless hours without getting paid. It's all a labor of love.

Sound like more of a work hazard than your back...
100%

It's a surprise, will one get a new or old painted Pyra? how will the paint survive ?
We have a new feature: lottery.
100% new one. We do not have the old one any more. That is why it all has been delayed. It makes no sense to open orders if we only have copper ones in stock while about 70% or more order black ones.

I hope the yeld is not too bad... :(
Nah, it is not that good ...
 
Last edited:
No, no holding back. It does not make sense. We produce Pyras as orders come in. There are EU, US and no LTE. Double those for black and copper. We count the orders and make Pyras accordingly.

I myself think that his order number thing is stupid anyways. Just batch produce them and send them out.
(I personally thing that offering 2 colors in our current situation is stupid anyways)

Not sure. I'm a little confused. I see reasons for and against. I don't know how I would do it.

It is not. However in March and February I did not even have a contract. Back in the Pandora days I worked countless hours without getting paid. It's all a labor of love.
I't probably more legal to work without a contract (if there's no pay) than to have a contract and not abide by it... But IANAL.

100% new one. We do not have the old one any more. That is why it all has been delayed. It makes no sense to open orders if we only have copper ones in stock while about 70% or more order black ones.
No, but at the time of the order the customer didn't know, so it's still a lottery when seen from the beginning.

Nah, it is not that good ...
:(
 
On a side note (I also added this to the main post)

It surprised me how one man can make such a difference. To me it seems like this all is not some kind of wizardry. Apparently it is. If it is not, shut up and let me believe that I am a wizard :p
I always thought that if I leave, just someone else picks it up and that's it. I never expected that it makes such a huge difference if I come back and support the project for a few hours a week. It almost makes me feel bad for leaving. At least it makes it hard for me to ever quit fully before not all orders are completed.
It's not like I gain anything except for some very temporary recognition by some random people on the Internet. At least they are real people and not bots, that's more than you can ask for today :p
My only wish is that the project will not die completely and that we maybe some day will get a SoC and case refresh and that at least part of the community and enthusiasm that once brought the Pandora to life might come back :)
Post automatically merged:

Not sure. I'm a little confused. I see reasons for and against. I don't know how I would do it.

No, but at the time of the order the customer didn't know, so it's still a lottery when seen from the beginning.
It is not a lottery.
It works like that:
- You do an order and get your voucher for a Pyra. That one is aout 250€.
- You are in line
- You get an E-Mail
- You order our color

Sure, the Platinum cases are gone now and will never come back. As well as the old black ones. However when a customer places a final order, the options are clear and at the moment you can choose between copper and (new) black.
 
If you have made it this far, congratulations, you have no life, just like me.
Indeed, I made it this far. You are correct in that I have no life. I live to create MSX retro games.

Thanx for the update. It is much appreciated!
As long as there is somebody who keeps the updates coming the project isn't dead.
Keep up the good work. As long as there is progress, however so small, the work will get done eventually.

The only thing I do not understand is why everything comes to a halt during Gamescom in August (reminds me somewhat of the Chinese new year situation).
What happens if you were to skip Gamescom and finish the Pyra's? Or does Dragonbox run/depand mostly on Gamescom revenue?
 
Remaining issues, here you can help us

What we need the most is some help to fix the boot issues. What we need is a way so that EvilDragon or I (= the noobs) can easily experiment with RAM timings.
Long ago, I got sick of editing the bit shifted values that configured the memory, so I broke it all out.
dram config
This might make it easier to edit. It still requires a lot of concentration. I didn't get around to trapping values to their field size to prevent weird values overflowing into other fields.
I was unhappy with my addition of
Code:
writel(0,0x4C000038);
writel(0,0x4D000038);
in board.c as it meant the memory wasn't configured for self refresh mode. Since making these changes I was wondering whether this value was never being set and that reading Table "15-166. EMIF_POWER_MANAGEMENT_CONTROL" and applying some good values might things better.

But my body got in the way and it's been a long road to recover.
 
The only thing I do not understand is why everything comes to a halt during Gamescom in August (reminds me somewhat of the Chinese new year situation).

Not everything comes to halt during Gamescom. There is one more person in the shop who does shipping.
Only the Pyra production comes to halt, because I can not produce Pyras while I am at the Gamescom.
The Gamescom is important because we are distributing a lot of catalogues and are getting a lot of new customers usually.
Further EvilDragon meets quite a lot of business contacts there.

We are attending the Gamescom for more than 10 years now.
It is not only a business event but also a personal event where we meet a lot of friends from the Retro area and recurring Gamescom visitors.
And do not forget the people that run the booth and come together for that event for many years.

What happens if you were to skip Gamescom and finish the Pyra's? Or does Dragonbox run/depand mostly on Gamescom revenue?

Those 2 weeks halt would not help to finish all the Pyras.
Dragonbox depends more on Gamescom than on finishing Pyras.
The Pyra is a loss. Paying me to complete the orders is a luxury. Not cancelling the project in its current state is a luxury.
Dragonbox runs on anything else but Pyra revenue. The GP2X, Pandora and Everdrives is what kickstarted the shop mostly. However now it is mostly Retro focused and has grown a lot.
 
If I think about it, only a therapist has even ore meetings than a computer scientist
Well, but therapist is one of the few professions where the customer isn't always right.
In programming the main problem is making product owners, customers and managers understand they're wrong.
Not just wrong, but inconsistent. What they're saying is not just wrong, it just doesn't mean anything.
So yeah, programmer and therapist... you must like talking to fools. You'll be happy. There's no shortage of fools.
Those 2 weeks halt would not help to finish all the Pyras.
Dragonbox depends more on Gamescom than on finishing Pyras.
The Pyra is a loss. Paying me to complete the orders is a luxury. Not cancelling the project in its current state is a luxury.
Dragonbox runs on anything else but Pyra revenue. The GP2X, Pandora and Everdrives is what kickstarted the shop mostly. However now it is mostly Retro focused and has grown a lot.
We know, we know. 2 weeks are not 2 months.And the only reason to continue the Pyra is for bragging rights in the Gamescom. Without Gamescom, no motivation for the Pyra.
Enjoy your fair.
 
We know, we know. 2 weeks are not 2 months.And the only reason to continue the Pyra is for bragging rights in the Gamescom. Without Gamescom, no motivation for the Pyra.
Enjoy your fair.
That does sound a bit harsh though. The Pyra is a community driven project and the Gamescom is one of the few days a year you can see and speak with the community members. No good reason to skip it. The shop is being promoted which hopefully translates into more budget to actually finish the Pyra. Without the Pyra ED could still promote his shop there.
 
We know, we know. 2 weeks are not 2 months.And the only reason to continue the Pyra is for bragging rights in the Gamescom. Without Gamescom, no motivation for the Pyra.
Enjoy your fair.

Haha. There are maybe 1 or 2 people during the whole exhibition who want to see the Pyra. We do not even advertise it currently :(
 
Thanks a lot for the News Askarus, and for your hard work on the Pyra Project, im sadly not a big help, my Youtube Chanell is in long time vacation, my own Pyra sits on the shelf above the much too big Swiss Army Knive Collection, and much worse: I cheat my Pyra whit an GPD Win Mini and an Anbernic RG35 SP..

If the Pyra would be able some time in the future to play PSP Games, i think i would change my Pocket Emu System from SP back to Pyra ..
 
And the only reason to continue the Pyra is for bragging rights in the Gamescom. Without Gamescom, no motivation for the Pyra.
That's definitely not true. I'm certain the main reasons are in loyalty to the community and commitment to deliver what's been promised.

It's hard to say what his current standpoint is on the Pyra as he's not publicly commented on it much the last few weeks/months, but I'm sure there's still some passion there even if we've had a long period of issues and setbacks. One of the recent things I recall ED mentioning recentlyish was "I couldn't do this without the community" (not exactly his words, I can't remember them precisely).
 
  • Like
Reactions: rSl
Amazing effort thank you Askarus & ED.

Imagine what a luxury it must be for other gaming handhelds to be manufactured entirely in a single mega factory with all components produced under one roof. We are the Rebel Alliance.
 
This post reminds me to start up my pyra again, it gets more use in the winter anyway. But great work askarus. Kind of sad to see pyra is much less of a group effort than the pandora, have tell you askarus you are no wizard but much more than that! A loyal and great help
 
Last edited:
That does sound a bit harsh though. The Pyra is a community driven project and the Gamescom is one of the few days a year you can see and speak with the community members. No good reason to skip it. The shop is being promoted which hopefully translates into more budget to actually finish the Pyra. Without the Pyra ED could still promote his shop there.

That's definitely not true. I'm certain the main reasons are in loyalty to the community and commitment to deliver what's been promised.

Of course it's not true. It was a joke! I'm sorry if that sounded harsh. It was not meant to.
I didn't propose to skip it, not even joking. I said "enjoy your fair".

It's hard to say what his current standpoint is on the Pyra as he's not publicly commented on it much the last few weeks/months, but I'm sure there's still some passion there even if we've had a long period of issues and setbacks. One of the recent things I recall ED mentioning recentlyish was "I couldn't do this without the community" (not exactly his words, I can't remember them precisely).
Yes. It must be a very strange mix of feelings tlike "why the hell did I have to start all this" and "I've done it quite well really, the Pyra does have its good points" or "we've done....".
Because there's been no shortage of problems, but in general the conclusion is that developing a device is very hard as a personal/SME project on a small budget. It's not like people took bad decisions or was selfish or anything. So I guess they can't regret it, but at the same time is and has been a lot of effort for little benefit (economically negative), so it's easy to regret it... I don't know.

I hope part of the reason to carry on is simply love for the product and/or the work itself: Thinking that it is a nice device, useful, practical, retro or not, but well done.
If the only reason to continue was loyalty to the community I'd feel bad as part of a too demanding community.
Maybe I write too much.
 
Back
Top